Dynamic streaming content provided by server and client-side tracking application

ABSTRACT

A system can stream content items and ad items to a user interface of a client-side application (such as a web browser) without refreshing the user interface and by requesting such items from a local cache and/or a remote cache associated with the client-side application or the user interface. The remote cache can operate much like a local cache for the client-side application or the user interface. Items can be streamed to a user interface without refreshing the user interface and by requesting such items from a remote cache dedicated to caching the items that can be presented by the user interface. Because the tracking of such items and the tracking of the interactions with such items creates such large amounts of data, communicating the tracked data may be impracticable without use of a system that can effectively compress associated instrumentation data.

BACKGROUND

This application relates to communicating compressed data across anetwork from a client device running a client-side application (such asweb browser). This application also relates to techniques for streamingcontent via a client-side application, such as techniques for streamingcontent to a page view displayed by a web browser. Further, thisapplication relates to compressing data associated with streamingcontent, including content data and user interaction data associatedwith a content stream.

Amongst complex client-side applications and page views of websites, agrowing amount of content and data are being rendered and tracked overthe Internet. In some instances, the rate of growth in the amount ofcontent and data provided and tracked exceeds the growth rate ofbandwidth and communications speed per costs. Contemporary remedies forcommunicating more data faster usually focus on improving thecommunications channels. Another remedy is to change the data beingcommunicated so that it is more concise or at least smaller.

One known way to make data more concise or at least smaller is tocompress it. For example, it is known and common to compress emailattachments to increase the speed in which an email attachment isuploaded for communication via an email, communicated across a networkbetween email servers, and eventually downloaded by a receiving emailserver and a user that clicks to download the attachment. Because ofsuch demands, compression has evolved throughout the Information Age andprogressing information systems have been configured to include datacompression for many reasons.

However, contemporary methods and systems for communicating trackedcontent data and user interaction data over the Internet for analysis,which effectively employ data compression, can be improved. Describedherein are example improvements.

Additionally, with regard to delivering content over the Internet,especially through a stream, performance and seamlessness of presentingnew content to a user still has hiccups, especially when a user deviceincludes or is connected to a link having limited bandwidth. Describedherein are also systems and methods for improving seamlessness in thedelivery of content over the Internet and ways to compress that data andassociated data for communication to a server, such as a web analyticsserver.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The systems and methods may be better understood with reference to thefollowing drawings and description. Non-limiting and non-exhaustiveexamples are described with reference to the following drawings. Thecomponents in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasisinstead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the system. Inthe drawings, like referenced numerals designate corresponding partsthroughout the different views.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an example information system thatincludes example devices of a network that can communicatively couplewith an example system that performs client-side compression of data forcommunication to a server.

FIG. 2 illustrates originally and newly displayed ad items and contentitems of example screens rendered by client-side applications within asession of each of the client-side applications, such as originalgraphical items and new graphical items streamed on a page view of aclient-side application, such as a web browser, within a session of theclient-side application.

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of the example information system ofFIG. 1 (information system 100) interacting with an example system thatperforms client-side compression of data for communication to a server(system 300), such as an analytics server.

FIGS. 4-6 illustrate example operations performed by example systemsthat can perform client-side compression of data for communication to aserver (such as the system 300 of FIG. 3).

FIG. 7 depicts one or more threads that can run operations of FIGS. 4-6and other client-side application operations.

FIG. 8 illustrates example operations performed by example systems thatcan throttle the client-side compression of data for communication to aserver (such as the system 300 of FIG. 3), via batch processing of thescanning of the data prior to the compression.

FIG. 9 illustrates example operations performed by example systems thatcan render a page view that appears to stream an infinite amount ofseamless content and can perform client-side compression of dataassociated with the seamless content, for communication to a server(such as the system 300 of FIG. 3).

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an example electronic device that canimplement one or more aspects of and related to example systems that canperform client-side compression of data for communication to a server(such as the system 300 of FIG. 3 and systems communicatively coupled tothe system 300).

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Subject matter will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, andwhich show, by way of illustration, specific examples. Subject mattermay, however, can be embodied in a variety of different forms and,therefore, covered or claimed subject matter is intended to be construedas not being limited to any examples set forth herein; examples areprovided merely to be illustrative. Likewise, a reasonably broad scopefor claimed or covered subject matter is intended. Among other things,for example, subject matter may be embodied as methods, devices,components, or systems. The following detailed description is,therefore, not intended to be limiting on the scope of what is claimed.

Overview of Dynamic Streaming Content Provided by a Client-SideApplication

Described herein are systems, products, and methods for streamingcontent items and ad items to a user interface of a client-sideapplication (such as a web browser) without refreshing the userinterface and by requesting such items from a local cache and/or aremote cache associated with the client-side application or the userinterface. In an example, the remote cache can operate much like a localcache for the client-side application and/or the user interface. Suchitems can also be streamed to a user interface without refreshing theuser interface and by requesting such items from a remote cachededicated to caching at least part of the items that can be presented bythe user interface up to a threshold period of time. Because thetracking of such items and the tracking of the interactions with suchitems creates such large amounts of data, communicating the tracked datamay be impracticable without use of systems, products, and methods foreffectively compressing instrumentation data and communicating suchcompressed data over the Internet to a server.

Regarding the data compressed, instrumentation data may include trackedcontent data, tracked page view data, tracked user interaction data, andtracked client-side application data. Tracked content data may includetracked data related to the substance of content and any data related tohuman perceivable features of that content, such as audio and/or visualfeatures of the content. Tracked page view data may include tracked datarelated to human perceivable features of a page view and one or moresections of that page view. Tracked user interaction data may includetracked data related to user interactions with the page view and itscontents, such as clicks and other types of gestures aimed at aspects ofthe page view and its contents. Tracked client-side application data mayinclude tracked data related to client-side application attributes andparameters, such as web browser versions and technical and visualfeatures of those versions. Tracked client-side application data mayalso include tracked configuration data.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an example information system thatincludes example devices of a network communicatively coupled with anexample system that performs client-side compression of data forcommunication to a server, such as for analysis. The information system100 in the example of FIG. 1 includes an account server 102, an accountdatabase 104, a search engine server 106, an ad server 108, an addatabase 110, a content database 114, a content server 112, a contentcache server 116, an analytics server 118, and an analytics database119. The aforementioned servers and databases can be communicativelycoupled over a network 120.

The information system 100 may be accessible over the network 120 by oneor more advertiser devices, such as advertiser device 122 and by one ormore user devices, such as user device 124. In various examples of suchan online information system, users may search for and obtain contentfrom sources over the network 120, such as obtaining content from thesearch engine server 106, the ad server 108, the ad database 110, thecontent database 114, the content server 112, and the content cacheserver 116. Advertisers may provide advertisements for placement onelectronic properties, such as web pages, and other communications sentover the network to user devices, such as the user device 124. Theonline information system can be deployed and operated by an onlineprovider, such as Yahoo! Inc.

The account server 102 stores account information for advertisers. Theaccount server 102 is in data communication with the account database104. Account information may include one or more database recordsassociated with each respective advertiser. Any suitable information maybe stored, maintained, updated and read from the account database 104 bythe account management server 102. Examples include advertiseridentification information, advertiser security information, such aspasswords and other security credentials, account balance information,and information that was compressed related to content associated withtheir ads and user interactions with their ads and associated content.Also, examples include analytics data related to their ads andassociated content and user interactions with the aforementioned.

The account server 102 may be implemented using any suitable device. Theaccount management server 102 may be implemented as a single server, aplurality of servers, or any other type of computing device known in theart. Access to the account server 102 can be accomplished through afirewall which protects the account management programs and the accountinformation from external tampering. Additional security may be providedvia enhancements to the standard communications protocols, such asSecure HTTP (HTTPS) or the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Such security maybe applied to the servers of FIG. 1, for example.

The account server 102 may provide an advertiser front end to simplifythe process of accessing the account information of an advertiser. Theadvertiser front end may be a program, application, or software routinethat forms a user interface. In a particular example, the advertiserfront end is accessible as a website with one or more electronicproperties that an accessing advertiser may view on an advertiserdevice, such as advertiser device 122. The advertiser may view and editaccount data and advertisement data using the advertiser front end.After editing the advertising data, the account data may then be savedto the account database 104.

The search engine server 106 may be a computer system, one or moreservers, or any other computing device known in the art. Alternatively,the search engine server 106 may be a computer program, instructions, orsoftware code stored on a computer-readable storage medium that runs ona processor of a single server, a plurality of servers, or any othertype of computing device known in the art. The search engine server 106may be accessed by user devices, such as the user device 124 operated bya user over the network 120.

The user device 124 communicates a user query to the search engineserver 106. The search engine server 106 locates matching informationusing any suitable protocol or algorithm and returns information to theuser device 124. The search engine server 106 may be designed to helpusers find information located on the Internet or an intranet. In anexample, the search engine server 106 may also provide to the userdevice 124 over the network 120 an electronic property, such as a webpage, with content, including search results, information matching thecontext of a user inquiry, links to other network destinations, orinformation and files of information of interest to a user operating theuser device 124, as well as a stream or web page of content items andadvertisement items selected for display to the user. The aforementionedinformation provided by the search engine server 106 may be part of thescanned, built, tracked, serialized, encoded, compressed, and/orcommunicated data described herein.

The search engine server 106 may enable a device, such as the userdevice 124 or any other client device, to search for files of interestusing a search query. Typically, the search engine server 106 may beaccessed by a client device via one or more servers or directly over thenetwork 120. The search engine server 106 may include a crawlercomponent, an indexer component, an index storage component, a searchcomponent, a ranking component, a cache, a profile storage component, alogon component, a profile builder, and one or more application programinterfaces (APIs). The search engine server 106 may be deployed in adistributed manner, such as via a set of distributed servers, forexample. Components may be duplicated within a network, such as forredundancy or better access.

The ad server 108 operates to serve advertisements to user devices, suchas the user device 124. Advertisements include data definingadvertisement information that may be of interest to a user of a userdevice. An advertisement may include text data, graphic data, imagedata, video data, or audio data. An advertisement may further includedata defining one or more links to other network resources providingsuch data. The other locations may be other locations on the internet,other locations on an intranet operated by the advertiser, or anyaccess. The aforementioned targeting data may be part of the scanned,built, tracked, serialized, encode, compressed, and/or communicated datadescribed herein. The aforementioned ads provided by the ad server 108may be part of the scanned, built, tracked, serialized, encoded,compressed, and/or communicated data described herein.

For online information providers, advertisements may be displayed onelectronic properties resulting from a user-defined search based, atleast in part, upon one or more search terms. Advertising may bebeneficial to users, advertisers or web portals if displayedadvertisements are relevant to interests of one or more users. Thus, avariety of techniques have been developed to infer user interest, userintent or to subsequently target relevant advertising to users. Theaforementioned targeting data may be part of the scanned, built,tracked, serialized, encoded, compressed, and/or communicated datadescribed herein.

One approach to presenting targeted advertisements includes employingdemographic characteristics (e.g., age, income, sex, occupation, etc.)for predicting user behavior, such as by group. Advertisements may bepresented to users in a targeted audience based, at least in part, uponpredicted user behavior. The aforementioned targeting data may be partof the scanned, built, tracked, serialized, encoded, compressed, and/orcommunicated data described herein.

Another approach includes profile-type ad targeting. In this approach,user profiles specific to a user may be generated to model userbehavior, for example, by tracking a user's path through a website ornetwork of sites, and compiling a profile based, at least in part, onpages or advertisements ultimately delivered. A correlation may beidentified, such as for user purchases, for example. An identifiedcorrelation may be used to target potential purchasers by targetingcontent or advertisements to particular users. The aforementionedtargeting data may be part of the scanned, built, tracked, encoded,serialized, compressed, and/or communicated data described herein.

Yet another approach includes targeting based on content of anelectronic property requested by a user. Advertisements may be placed onan electronic property or in association with other content that isrelated to the subject of the advertisements. The relationship betweenthe content and the advertisement may be determined in any suitablemanner. The overall theme of a particular electronic property may beascertained, for example, by analyzing the content presented therein.Moreover, techniques have been developed for displaying advertisementsgeared to the particular section of the article currently being viewedby the user. Accordingly, an advertisement may be selected by matchingkeywords, and/or phrases within the advertisement and the electronicproperty. The aforementioned targeting data may be part of the scanned,built, tracked, serialized, encoded, compressed, and/or communicateddata described herein.

The ad server 108 includes logic and data operative to format theadvertisement data for communication to the user device. The ad server108 is in data communication with the ad database 110. The ad database110 stores information, including data defining advertisements, to beserved to user devices. This advertisement data may be stored in the addatabase 110 by another data processing device or by an advertiser. Theadvertising data may include data defining advertisement creatives andbid amounts for respective advertisements. The aforementioned adformatting and pricing data may be part of the scanned, built, tracked,serialized, encoded, compressed, and/or communicated data describedherein.

The advertising data may be formatted to an advertising item that may beincluded in a stream of content items and advertising items provided toa user device. The formatted advertising items can be specified byappearance, size, shape, text formatting, graphics formatting andincluded information, which may be standardized to provide a consistentlook for advertising items in the stream.

Further, the ad server 108 is in data communication with the network120. The ad server 108 communicates ad data and other information todevices over the network 120. This information may include advertisementdata communicated to a user device. This information may also includeadvertisement data and other information communicated with an advertiserdevice, such as the advertiser device 122. An advertiser operating anadvertiser device may access the ad server 108 over the network toaccess information, including advertisement data. This access mayinclude developing advertisement creatives, editing advertisement data,deleting advertisement data, setting and adjusting bid amounts and otheractivities. The ad server 108 then provides the ad items to othernetwork devices, such as the content cache server 116.

The ad server 108 may provide an advertiser front end to simplify theprocess of accessing the advertising data of an advertiser. Theadvertiser front end may be a program, application or software routinethat forms a user interface. In one particular example, the advertiserfront end is accessible as a website with one or more electronicproperties that an accessing advertiser may view on the advertiserdevice. The advertiser may view and edit advertising data using theadvertiser front end. After editing the advertising data, theadvertising data may then be saved to the ad database 110 for subsequentcommunication in advertisements to a user device.

The ad server 108 may be a computer system, one or more servers, or anyother computing device known in the art. Alternatively, the ad server108 may be a computer program, instructions, and/or software code storedon a computer-readable storage medium that runs on a processor of asingle server, a plurality of servers, or any other type of computingdevice known in the art.

The content server 112 and the content cache server 116 may accessinformation about content items either from the content database 114 orfrom another location accessible over the network 120. The contentserver 112 and the content cache server 116 communicate data definingcontent items and other information to devices over the network 120. Forexample, the content cache server 116 can communicate hyperlinks from aqueue in the content cache server 116, where the hyperlinks includeaddresses to served content, such as content served from the contentserver 112 or another content source. These hyperlinks can link to thecontent provided in the streams described herein for example. Ingeneral, the information about content items may include any type ofcontent data communicated to a user device.

The information about content items may also include content data andother information communicated by a content provider operating a contentprovider device. A content provider operating a content provider devicemay access the content server 112 or the content cache server 116 overthe network 120 to access information, including content data. Thisaccess may be for developing content items, editing content items,deleting content items, setting and adjusting bid amounts and otheractivities.

The content server 112 or the content cache server 116 may provide acontent provider front end to simplify the process of accessing thecontent data of a content provider. The content provider front end maybe a program, application or software routine that forms a userinterface. In a particular example, the content provider front end isaccessible as a website with one or more electronic properties that anaccessing content provider may view on the content provider device. Thecontent provider may view and edit content data using the contentprovider front end. After editing the content data, such as at thecontent server 112 or another source of content, the content data maythen be saved to the content database 114 or the content cache server116 for subsequent communication to a user device. In an example, thecontent cache server 116 is dedicated to caching, such as through aqueue and/or a stack, content and content data for subsequentcommunication to a user device, such as client device 301 of FIG. 3.

The content server 112 or the content cache server 116 includes logicand data operative to format content data and other information forcommunication to the user device. The content server 112 or the contentcache server 116 can also provide the content items to other networkdevices. The content server 112 can provide content items or links tosuch items to the content cache server 116 that eventually serves theitems to a user device, such as the client device 301 of FIG. 3.

The content data may be formatted to a content item that may be includedin a stream of content items and advertisement items provided to a userdevice. The formatted content items can be specified by appearance,size, shape, text formatting, graphics formatting and includedinformation, which may be standardized to provide a consistent look forcontent items in the stream.

In an example, the content items have an associate bid amount that maybe used for ranking or positioning the content items in a stream ofitems presented to a user device. In other examples, the content itemsdo not include a bid amount, or the bid amount is not used for rankingthe content items. Such content items may be considered non-revenuegenerating items.

The content server 112 and/or the content cache server 116 can includelogic and data operative to format content data and other informationfor communication to the user device. The content server 112 and/or thecontent cache server 116 then can provide the content items to othernetwork devices, such as the ad server 108.

The content cache server 116 can be one of a plurality of content cacheservers distributed geographically to facilitate faster retrieval ofdata. For example, a user device, such as the client device 301, mayreceive content data from the most geographical proximate content cacheserver or the next most geographical proximate content cache server ifthe most proximate one is busier. In other words, the content cacheserver used can depend on a determination of which content cache servershould provide the data the fastest to the requesting user device. Thisdetermination can be according to traffic occurring at or associatedwith the server, and/or geographical proximity to the requesting userdevice. Also, in an example, various shortcuts can be utilized todetermine traffic associated with a server or the most geographicalproximate server. For example, a smart Domain Name System (DNS) can beused to determine the closest content cache server. Also, in oneexample, to facilitate speed of content data delivery, the content datacan be stored in RAM of the content cache server 116 and served via alightweight proxy server, such as a lightweight proxy server implementedvia an Apache server.

The aforementioned servers and databases may be implemented through anysuitable computing device. A computing device may be capable of sendingor receiving signals, such as via a wired or wireless network, or may becapable of processing or storing signals, such as in memory as physicalmemory states, and may, therefore, operate as a server. Thus, devicescapable of operating as a server may include, as examples, dedicatedrack-mounted servers, desktop computers, laptop computers, set topboxes, integrated devices combining various features, such as two ormore features of the foregoing devices, or the like.

Servers may vary widely in configuration or capabilities, but generally,a server may include one or more central processing units and memory. Aserver may also include one or more mass storage devices, one or morepower supplies, one or more wired or wireless network interfaces, one ormore input/output interfaces, or one or more operating systems, such asWindows Server, Mac OS X, Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, or the like.

The aforementioned servers and databases may be implemented as onlineserver systems or may be in communication with online server systems. Anonline server system may include a device that includes a configurationto provide data via a network to another device including in response toreceived requests for page views or other forms of content delivery. Anonline server system may, for example, host a site, such as a socialnetworking site, examples of which may include, without limitation,Flicker, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or a personal user site (such as ablog, vlog, online dating site, etc.). An online server system may alsohost a variety of other sites, including, but not limited to businesssites, educational sites, dictionary sites, encyclopedia sites, wikis,financial sites, government sites, etc.

An online server system may further provide a variety of services thatmay include web services, third-party services, audio services, videoservices, email services, instant messaging (IM) services, SMS services,MMS services, FTP services, voice over IP (VOIP) services, calendaringservices, photo services, or the like. Examples of content may includetext, images, audio, video, or the like, which may be processed in theform of physical signals, such as electrical signals, for example, ormay be stored in memory, as physical states, for example. Examples ofdevices that may operate as an online server system include desktopcomputers, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-type or programmableconsumer electronics, etc. The online server system may or may not beunder common ownership or control with the servers and databasesdescribed herein.

The network 120 may include any data communication network orcombination of networks. A network may couple devices so thatcommunications may be exchanged, such as between a server and a clientdevice or other types of devices, including between wireless devicescoupled via a wireless network, for example. A network may also includemass storage, such as network attached storage (NAS), a storage areanetwork (SAN), or other forms of computer or machine readable media, forexample. A network may include the Internet, one or more local areanetworks (LANs), one or more wide area networks (WANs), wire-line typeconnections, wireless type connections, or any combination thereof.Likewise, sub-networks, such as may employ differing architectures ormay be compliant or compatible with differing protocols, mayinteroperate within a larger network, such as the network 120.

Various types of devices may be made available to provide aninteroperable capability for differing architectures or protocols. Forexample, a router may provide a link between otherwise separate andindependent LANs. A communication link or channel may include, forexample, analog telephone lines, such as a twisted wire pair, a coaxialcable, full or fractional digital lines including T1, T2, T3, or T4 typelines, Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDNs), Digital SubscriberLines (DSLs), wireless links, including satellite links, or othercommunication links or channels, such as may be known to those skilledin the art. Furthermore, a computing device or other related electronicdevices may be remotely coupled to a network, such as via a telephoneline or link, for example.

The advertiser device 122 includes any data processing device that mayaccess the information system 100 over the network 120. The advertiserdevice 122 is operative to interact over the network 120 with any of theservers or databases described herein. The advertiser device 122 mayimplement a client-side application, such as a web browser, for viewingelectronic properties and submitting user requests. The advertiserdevice 122 may communicate data to the information system 100, includingdata defining electronic properties and other information. Theadvertiser device 122 may receive communications from the informationsystem 100, including data defining electronic properties andadvertising creatives.

In an example, content providers may access the information system 100with content provider devices that are generally analogous to theadvertiser devices in structure and function. The content providerdevices provide access to content data in the content database 114, forexample.

The user device 124 includes any data processing device that may accessthe information system 100 over the network 120. The user device 124 isoperative to interact over the network 120 with the search engine server106, the ad server 108, the content server 112, the content cache server116, and the analytics server 118. The user device 124 may implement aclient-side application, such as a web browser, for viewing electroniccontent and submitting user requests. A user operating the user device124 may enter a search request and communicate the search request to theinformation system 100. The search request is processed by the searchengine and search results are returned to the user device 124.

In other examples, a user of the user device 124 may request data, suchas a page of information from the online information system 100. Thedata instead may be provided in another environment, such as a nativemobile application, TV application, or an audio application. The onlineinformation system 100 may provide the data or re-direct the browser toanother source of the data. In addition, the ad server may selectadvertisements from the ad database 110 and include data defining theadvertisements in the provided data to the user device 124.

The advertiser device 122 and the user device 124 operate as a clientdevice when accessing information on the information system 100. Aclient device, such as the advertiser device 122 and the user device 124may include a computing device capable of sending or receiving signals,such as via a wired or a wireless network. A client device may, forexample, include a desktop computer or a portable device, such as acellular telephone, a smart phone, a display pager, a radio frequency(RF) device, an infrared (IR) device, a Personal Digital Assistant(PDA), a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a settop box, a wearable computer, an integrated device combining variousfeatures, such as features of the forgoing devices, or the like. In theexample of FIG. 1, both laptop computer 126 and smartphone 128, whichcan be client devices, may be operated as either an advertiser device ora user device.

A client device may vary in terms of capabilities or features. Claimedsubject matter is intended to cover a wide range of potentialvariations. For example, a cell phone may include a numeric keypad or adisplay of limited functionality, such as a monochrome liquid crystaldisplay (LCD) for displaying text. In contrast, however, as anotherexample, a web-enabled client device may include one or more physical orvirtual keyboards, mass storage, one or more accelerometers, one or moregyroscopes, global positioning system (GPS) or otherlocation-identifying type capability, or a display with a high degree offunctionality, such as a touch-sensitive color 2D or 3D display, forexample.

A client device, such as the advertiser device 122 and the user device124, may include or may execute a variety of operating systems,including a personal computer operating system, such as a Windows, iOSor Linux, or a mobile operating system, such as iOS, Android, or WindowsMobile, or the like. A client device may include or may execute avariety of possible applications, such as a client software applicationenabling communication with other devices, such as communicating one ormore messages, such as via email, short message service (SMS), ormultimedia message service (MMS), including via a network, such as asocial network, including, for example, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,Flickr, or Google+, to provide only a few possible examples. A clientdevice may also include or execute an application to communicatecontent, such as, for example, textual content, multimedia content, orthe like. A client device may also include or execute an application toperform a variety of possible tasks, such as browsing, searching,playing various forms of content, including locally or remotely storedor streamed video, or games. The foregoing is provided to illustratethat claimed subject matter is intended to include a wide range ofpossible features or capabilities. At least some of the features,capabilities, and interactions with the aforementioned may be tracked,serialized, encoded, compressed, and communicated to a relevant server,by respective processes described herein.

Also, the disclosed methods and systems may be implemented at leastpartially in a cloud-computing environment, at least partially in aserver, at least partially in a client device, or in a combinationthereof.

FIG. 2 illustrates originally and newly displayed ad items and contentitems of example screens rendered by client-side applications within asession of each of the client-side applications, such as originalgraphical items and new graphical items streamed on a page view of aclient-side application, such as a web browser, within a session of theclient-side application. The content items and ad items displayed may beprovided by the search engine server 106, the ad server 108, the contentserver 112, or the content cache server 116 of FIG. 1.

In FIG. 2, a display ad 202 is illustrated as displayed on a variety ofdisplays including a mobile web device display 204, a mobile applicationdisplay 206 and a personal computer display 208. The mobile web devicedisplay 204 may be shown on the display screen of a mobile handhelddevice, such as a smartphone. The mobile application display 206 may beshown on the display screen of a portable device, such as a tabletcomputer. The personal computer display 208 may be displayed on thedisplay screen of a personal computer (PC).

The display ad 202 is shown in FIG. 2 formatted for display on a userdevice but not as part of a stream to illustrate an example of thecontents of such a display ad. The display ad 202 includes text 212,graphic images 214 and a defined boundary 216. The display ad 202 can bedeveloped by an advertiser for placement on an electronic property, suchas a web page, sent to a user device operated by a user. The display ad202 may be placed in a wide variety of locations on the electronicproperty. The defined boundary 216 and the shape of the display ad canbe matched to a space available on an electronic property. If the spaceavailable has the wrong shape or size, the display ad 202 may not beuseable.

To overcome these requirements and limitations, the display ad 202 maybe reformatted or alternately formatted for inclusion in a stream ofcontent items and advertising items including a stream ad incorporatingcontents of the display ad 202. The aforementioned reformatting or thealternative formatting for inclusion in a stream may occur at thecontent cache server 116 and/or the content server 112. For example, thereformatting or the alternative formatting for inclusion in a stream mayoccur at the content server 112, but the results of these activities maybe cached and/or refined at the content cache server 116.

In these examples, the display ad is shown as a part of streams 224 a,224 b, and 224 c. The streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 c include a sequenceof items displayed, one item after another, for example, down anelectronic property viewed on the mobile web device display 204, themobile application display 206 and the personal computer display 208.The streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 c may include any type of items. Inthe illustrated example, the streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 c includecontent items and advertising items. For example, stream 224 a includescontent items 226 a and 228 a along with advertising item 222 a; stream224 b includes content items 226 b, 228 b, 230 b, 232 b, 234 b andadvertising item 222 b; and stream 224 c includes content items 226 c,228 c, 230 c, 232 c and 234 c and advertising item 222 c. With respectto FIG. 2, the content items can be items published by non-advertisers.However, these content items may include advertising components. Each ofthe streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 c may include any number of contentitems and advertising items.

In an example, the streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 c may be arranged toappear to the user to be an endless sequence of items, so that as auser, of a user device on which one of the streams 224 a, 224 b, or 224c is displayed, scrolls the display, a seemingly endless sequence ofitems appears in the displayed stream. The scrolling can occur via thescroll bars 240 a and 240 b, for example, or by other knownmanipulations, such as a user dragging his or her finger downward orupward over a touch screen displaying the streams 224 a, 224 b, or 224c.

To enhance the apparent endless sequence of items so that the itemsdisplay quicker from manipulations by the user, the items can be cachedby a local cache and/or a remote cache associated with the client-sideapplication or the page view, such as a remote cache embedded in thecontent cache server 116. Such caches may include a queue or a stack forstoring the content items or links to the content items.

The content items positioned in any of streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 cmay include news items, business-related items, sports-related items,etc. Further, in addition to textual or graphical content, the contentitems of any stream may include other data as well, such as audio andvideo data or applications. Each content item may include text,graphics, other data, and a link to additional information. Clicking orotherwise selecting the link re-directs the browser on the user's deviceto an electronic property referred to as a landing page that containsthe additional information. The clicking or otherwise selecting of thelink, the re-direction to the landing page, the landing page, and theadditional information, for example, can each be tracked, and then thedata associated with the tracking can be serialized, encoded,compressed, and communicated to a relevant server, such as the analyticsserver 118 or the account server 102. Once received by the relevantserver, the compressed data can be decompressed and decoded into theserialized data. Also, the serialized data can be reverse processed intoor near its original state. For example, the analytics server canreceive batched scanned, serialized, encoded, and compressed dataassociated with one or more streams of a page view, and reverse theseprocesses to derive the data to its original state or near originalstate. This derived data can then be used for analytics and other uses.

Stream ads like the advertising items 222 a, 222 b, and 222 c may beinserted into the stream of content, supplementing the sequence ofrelated items, providing a more seamless experience for end users.Similar to content items, the advertising items may include textual orgraphical content as well as other data, such as audio and video data orapplications. Each advertising item 222 a, 222 b, and 222 c may includetext, graphics, other data, and a link to additional information.Clicking or otherwise selecting the link re-directs the browser on theuser's device to an electronic property referred to as a landing page.The clicking or otherwise selecting of the link, the re-direction to thelanding page, the landing page, and the additional information, forexample, can each be tracked, and then the data associated with thetracking can be serialized, encoded, compressed, and communicated to arelevant server, such as the analytics server 118 or the account server102.

While the example streams 224 a, 224 b, and 224 c are shown with asingle visible advertising item 222 a, 222 b, and 222 c, respectively,any number of advertising items may be included in a stream of items.Also, the advertising items may be slotted within the content, such asslotted the same for all users or slotted based on personalization orgrouping, such as grouping by audience members or content. Adjustmentsof the slotting may be according to various dimensions and algorithms.This concept of slotting is just one of many Internet marketingstrategies that can be optimized by the system 300 of FIG. 3 or one ofthe other systems, modules, or operations described herein, such as theoperations illustrated by FIGS. 4-9.

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of the example information system ofFIG. 1 (information system 100) interacting with an example system thatperforms client-side compression of data for web analytics (the system300). For example, FIG. 3 illustrates the system 300 that enablescommunication of a maximum amount of data over a minimal amount ofpackets to the account server 102 and/or the analytics server 118, viacontent scanning, content model building, content and user interactiontracking, data serializing, data encoding, and/or data compressing. Inan example, the system 300 enables the uploading of a maximum amount ofdata from a client device 301 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, or 128) to aserver device, such as a service device connected to the client devicethrough the network 120 of information system 100. Considering thegrowing amount of content and data rendered and tracked via a webapplication, limited bandwidth, and growing demand for speed, it can beespecially useful to have such a system that can upload large amounts ofdata per packet via data compression.

As illustrated, system 300 is hosted on the client device 301. However,any one or more of the depicted aspects of the system 300 may be hostedon a device external to the client device 301. Also, as illustrated, thesystem 300 is hosted via a client-side application 303, such as a webbrowser, hosted on the client device 301. However, any one or more ofthe depicted aspects of the system 300 may be without a host applicationor hosted by another application besides the client-side application303.

System 300 includes a code scanner 302, a code builder 304, aserialization device 306, a code compressor 308, and a communicationinterface 310. The system 300 also includes a user interaction tracker312 and a content tracker 320. The code scanner 302 is at leastcommunicatively coupled to the code builder 304 and one or more contentsources (e.g., the content cache server 116, the content server 112, thead server 108, and the search server 106 of FIG. 1).

Content 316 to be scanned by the code scanner 302, can be provided via apage view of an electronic property (such as a web page view), streamingaudio and/or video of a media player, any other form of electroniccontent delivery, or any combination thereof. This application, for themost part, describes interactions with page views for convenience.However, the example aspects of the system 300 and other systems andmethods described herein can interact with streaming audio and/or videoof a media player, any other form of electronic content delivery, or anycombination thereof.

Such content can be communicated from the content source(s) to theclient device 301 via the network 120. Then once the content 316 isreceived by the client device 301, the code scanner 302 can scan atleast part of the content 316. Content, such as the content 316, can beany electronic form of content configured to be presented through one ormore of display, speaker, or any of other user interface device. Forexample, the content 316 can include one or more of audio, visual,tactile, or any other form of human-perceivable information.

Where at least part of the content 316 is within a page view and wheresource code of at least that part of the page view is available, thecode scanner 302 can scan the source code to identify objects of thesource code. Where the source code includes one or more documents, suchas source code including HTML and/or XML, the code scanner can use acomputer program, such as a DOM script, to search through and identifyobjects of a document object model (DOM) of the one or more documents ofthe source code. The DOM is a cross-platform and language-independentconvention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML and XMLdocuments, for example. A DOM script can include scripting computerlanguages, such as JAVASCRIPT and PHP, which can interact with the DOMin various ways.

DOM scripts, other client-side application scripts, applets, othersoftware, analogous firmware, analogous computer hardware, or anycombination thereof can be used to implement the code scanner 302, thecode builder 304, the trackers 312 and 320, the serialization device306, the code compressor 308, and the communication interface 310.

Referring back to the structure of the system 300, the code builder 304is at least communicatively coupled to the code scanner 302 and theserialization device 306. The code scanner 302 can also becommunicatively coupled to the user interaction tracker 312 and thecontent tracker 320. The user interaction tracker 312 is also at leastcommunicatively coupled to the code builder 304 and the serializationdevice 306. The content tracker 320 is at least communicatively coupledto the code builder 304 and the serialization device 306 too. Theserialization device 306 is at least communicatively coupled to the codecompressor 308, the code builder 304, the user interaction tracker 312and the content tracker 320. The code compressor 308 is at leastcommunicatively coupled to at least the serialization device 306 and thecommunication interface 310. The aforementioned couplings may be directcouplings or may be couplings via an intermediary device. Each of theaforementioned components of the system 300 may be directly orindirectly communicatively coupled to each other. For example, the codecompressor 308 and the serialization device 306 may be coupled via acode encoder.

The system 300 can also include respective configurators 322, 324, 326,328, 330, 332, and 334 for the code scanner 302, the code builder 304,the serialization device 306, the code compressor 308, the communicationinterface 310, and the trackers 312 and 320. The respectiveconfigurators 322, 324, 326, 328, 330, 332, and 334 can configure thecode scanner 302, the code builder 304, the serialization device 306,the code compressor 308, the communication interface 310, and thetrackers 312 and 320 to perform their respective processes, on the fly,during a page view. A server associated with the system 300 that can becommunicatively coupled to other associated servers, such as the accountserver 102 and the analytics server 118, can communicate configurationdata 318 to the respective configurators 322, 324, 326, 328, 330, 332,and 334. On the fly configurations allows for a variety of complexfeatures and interactions to take place without refreshing the page viewor making a request to a server or device external to the client-sideapplication 303, besides the content cache server 116, for example.

The system 300 can also include respective terminators (not depicted)for the code scanner 302, the code builder 304, the serialization device306, the code compressor 308, the communication interface 310, thetrackers 312 and 320, and any other components of the system 300. Therespective terminators can terminate or at least interrupt operationsperformed by the code scanner 302, the code builder 304, theserialization device 306, the code compressor 308, the communicationinterface 310, and the trackers 312 and 320. The respective terminatorscan also completely terminate and remove the code scanner 302, the codebuilder 304, the serialization device 306, the code compressor 308, thecommunication interface 310, and the trackers 312 and 320 from a sessionof a page view or even an entire session of the client-side application303. In an example, it may be required to run a respective terminatorprior to reinitiating a component of the system, such in the event ofreinitiating a component within a session.

Also, termination or interruption of these components or processes ofthese components can be executed, on the fly, during a page view orduring a session of the client-side application 303. This allows for avariety of features and interactions to be immediately limited. Forexample, the respective terminators can be communicatively coupled to asecurity component, so that any operation of the system or component ofthe system can be terminated if it is infected or probable of beinginfected by a virus or some other form of corruption or security breach.

In an example, the code scanner 302 can be configured to run codescanning processes (e.g., code scans 422, 522, and 622 illustrated inFIGS. 4-6 respectively) on a thread, such as a foreground thread of theclient-side application 303 (e.g., foreground thread(s) 416, 516, and616, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively). A trigger, such as acommunication from a remote control server or local controller, mayinitiate the scanning by the code scanner 302. The trigger may be thereceiving of an indication of one or more sections of an electronicproperty to be tracked, such as via a HTTP or a HTTPS request to trackthe electronic property.

The code scanner 302, within the scanning processes, via the thread, canbe configured to receive an indication of one or more sections of thecontent 316 to be tracked. Also, the code scanner 302, within thescanning processes, via the thread, can be configured to scan astructure and/or organization of the content 316, such as scan at leastpart of a DOM of an electronic property, such as a DOM of a web page.The code scanner 302 can be configured to scan a structure and/ororganization of the content 316 within at least one of the one or morethe sections of the content. In an example, the one or more sections ofthe content 316 are source code blocks associated with the content. Forexample, the source code blocks may be source code blocks of anelectronic property.

The code scanner 302, within the scanning processes, can also beconfigured to identify one or more anchors according to the scannedsections of the content 316. For example, the code scanner 302 can beconfigured to identify one or more anchors according to the scannedstructure and/or organization of the content 316, such as according tothe scanned at least part of a DOM of an electronic property. Anchorscan include text that identifies parts of a page view, links to elementsof a page view or to other content, or links to computer programsassociated with the page view. In an example, these links may be HTML orXML hyperlinks. Anchors can come in other forms besides text of sourcecode, and can provide other functionality not specified herein.

The anchors and the types of anchors may be standard or customized, suchas customized to an electronic property hosting the content 316.Customization can occur through a code section or a configuration objectaccompanying the content 316 communicated from the content source orfrom a control part of the system, such as a control server. Theconfiguration code can also include a debug component, for debugging thescanning, logging, and possibly the eventual build and organization ofthe logged data. The configuration code or object can be automaticallyand/or manually created.

In an example, the code scanner can be configured to automaticallydetermine, via machine learning for example, which sections of thecontent 316 is to be scanned. For example, it can be determined whichlink views in a listing of content can be scanned. As the scanningoccurs, the code scanner may log respective data in a data structure,such as an array. In an example, the code scanner can automatically loglink views associated with determined or selected anchors and/orsections. Sections and anchors can be selected for scanning viakey-value pairs in a list, such as an array data structure. The list ofpairs may be multi-dimensional so that relationships between the pairsmay be identified, for example. The key-value pairs may representvarious instances of notations representing sectional divisions,paragraphs, and other aspects of content, such as structural elements ofsource code of an electronic property.

In the logging of the content 316, which may occur within the scanningprocesses, various open source and/or proprietary libraries may beutilized. For example, the scanning and logging may use librariesspecific to tracking various audio and/or visual presentation ofelectronic content, various parameters associated with the client-sideapplication, and various types of user interactions. Also, a library maybe used that is specific to tracking user interaction data associatedwith browsing of electronic content. Eventually, the scanned and trackedcomponents of and actions associated with the content 316 and/or theclient-side application can be used by an analytics systems for variouspurposes.

In an example, various features, dimensions, and/or parameters of aclient-side application, such as a web browser, can be tracked. This canbe done one a per-session basis. This tracked information can beassociated with a user and can represent a fingerprint of the user withrespect to that user's use of the client-side application on theInternet. For example, the system 300 can track a user by tracking auser's unique setup on his or her client-side applications. For example,a user's web browser can have a unique arrangement of features, whichcan be tracked. For example, a unique arrangement of web browser pluginsinstalled, screen size preferred, accepted HTTP headers, mime types,and/or fonts installed can be tracked.

Besides being selective with respect to structure of the content 316,the scanning may be focused according to the analytics to be run on thescanned and logged data. Also, scans may be run separately in batchesaccording to batch processes for different analytics purposes. Theindividual batch scans then may be compartmentalized by separateserializations and compressions. For example, a compressed file maybesent in a packet per focused scan.

The code builder 304, within code building processes (e.g., codebuilding 424, 524, or 624 illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively), mayorganize logged data in multi-dimensional data structures that providesrelationship data between parts of the content 316. This can beespecially useful for the focused scans. Also, the code builder 304,within the code building processes, can identify and mark relationshipsbetween separate focused scans. This can be especially useful in batchprocessing of scans (such as illustrated at 810 in FIG. 8).

In an example, the code builder 304 can be configured to run the codebuilding processes on a thread, such as a foreground thread of theclient-side application 303 (e.g., foreground thread(s) 416, 516, and616, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively). The code builder 304,within the code building processes, via the thread, can be configured tobuild a hierarchical representation of at least part of the one or moresections and/or the one or more identified anchors.

Also, in an example, the user interaction tracker 312 can be configuredto run user interaction tracking processes (e.g., user interactiontracking 426, 526, or 626 illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively) on athread, such as a foreground thread of the client-side application 303(e.g., foreground thread(s) 416, 516, and 616, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6respectively). The user interaction tracker 312, within the userinteraction tracking processes, via the thread, can be configured totrack user interactions with user interface elements within at leastpart of the one or more sections of the content 316. User interactionscan also be tracked via the structure and/or organization of the content316, such as via a document object model (DOM) of an electronicproperty. User interactions can also be tracked via hierarchicalrepresentation of at least part of the one or more sections and/or theone or more identified anchors, such as the hierarchical representationbuilt by the code builder 304. The user interaction tracker 312, withinthe user interaction tracking processes, via the thread, can also beconfigured to derive user interaction data from the tracked userinteractions. The derived user interaction data may include one or moreof link views, page views, clicks on aspects of the electronic property,and dwell times, for example.

User interaction data can also include various instances of scrollingthrough one or more page views or scrolling through one or more sectionsof a single page view. For example, user interaction data can include anamount of page views a user has scrolled through in a screen of aclient-side application. In an example, the amount of page views a userhas scrolled through in a screen can be determined according to anamount of pixels scrolled, in a direction, and the length of the screenin that direction. For example, if the height of the screen containing afirst page view is 100 pixels, and a user has scrolled down 200 pixels,then that user has viewed three page views including the first pageview.

Also, in an example, the content tracker 320 can be configured to runcontent tracking processes (e.g., content tracking 428, 528, or 628,illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively) on a thread, such as a foregroundthread of the client-side application 303 (e.g., foreground thread(s)416, 516, and 616, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively). The contenttracker 320, within the content tracking processes, via the thread, canbe configured to the track updates in the content 316, whether theupdates occur without refreshing a page view or without making a requestto a device external to the client device 301 and/or the client-sideapplication 303, beside making a request to a content cache server, suchas the content cache server 116. For example, in the page view 242 ofFIG. 2, content within the stream 224 c initially appearing (e.g.,content items 226 c, 228 c, and 230 c) may update without refreshing thepage view 242 or making a request to a device external to theclient-side application 303 or the client device 301, besides a contentcache server; and that update may be tracked by the content tracker 320.

The updates to the content 316 may also include dynamic or staticchanges to the content 316 or changes to the page view or changes tocontent within a media player that are independent of the content 316.For example, in the page view 242 of FIG. 2, content within the stream224 c appearing after a user interacts with scrollbar 240 a (e.g.,content items 232 c and 234 c) may be independent of the content 316 inthat it comes from a different source than the content 316 and/or it isnot associated with the content 316 besides that it is linked to thestream 224 c; and that content appearing after the user interacts withscrollbar 240 a may be tracked by the content tracker 320. New contentappearing after user interaction with the client-side application 303,such as content items 232 c and 234 c of FIG. 2, that can be tracked bythe content tracker 320, can be tracked upon presentation of the newcontent or upon being stored within a cache of the client-sideapplication or the client device 301 prior to presentation or even arequest of such content.

Updates to the content 316 can also be tracked via the structure and/ororganization of the content, such as via a DOM of an electronicproperty. Updates to the content 316 can also be tracked via ahierarchical representation of at least part of the one or more sectionsand/or the one or more identified anchors, such as the hierarchicalrepresentation built by the code builder 304. The content tracker 320,within the content tracking processes, via the thread, can also beconfigured to derive content updates data from the tracked updates tothe content 316.

In an example, the serialization device 306 can be configured to rundata serialization processes (e.g., serialization 430, 530, or 630illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively) on a thread, such as a backgroundthread of the client-side application 303 (e.g., background thread(s)418, 518, and 618, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively). In anotherexample, the serialization device 306 can be configured to run dataserialization processes on a foreground thread of the client-sideapplication 303.

The serialization device 306, within the serialization processes, viathe thread, can be configured to serialize data derived from thehierarchical representation of the one or more sections and the one ormore identified anchors. The serialization device 306, within theserialization processes, via the thread, can be also be configured toserialize data derived from the user interaction data.

The serialization device 306, within the serialization processes, viathe thread, can also be configured to store the serialized data inmemory, such as a local storage device or a local cache. In an example,the memory may be a part of the memory of the client device 301, such asbeing a part of memory 1010 of FIG. 10. The memory may be local withrespect to the client-side application 303, an operating system hostingthe client-side application 303, and/or a device hosting the client-sideapplication 303. The serialization processes may include translatingdata structures and/or object state of the content 316 into a formatthat can be stored. The storage operations may include translating datastructures and/or object state of the content 316 for storage in thememory, a file, and/or a buffer to the memory, and/or for transmission,such as via a packet, across a network channel.

The serialized data may be reconstructed subsequently in the samecomputer environment that it was serialized or another environmentcompatible with the serialization. The serialization can be used tocreate a semantically identical clone of original objects associatedwith the content 316, such as objects optimized by the code builder 304.

Complex objects, such as those with complex hierarchy and that makeextensive use of references, may be serialize with modification to theoriginal data objects being serialized. For example, where theserialization includes serialization of object-oriented objects,associated methods of the objects may not include associated methodsinextricably linked.

To maintain the privacy and confidentiality, the serializations may usealgorithms that encrypt the data as well. Once encrypted, serialized,and compressed, the data sent by the communication interface 310, may besecure; and once the data is received securely by its intendeddestination the data can be at least decrypted. The encryption anddecryption can be implemented by any known or foreseeable technologycompatible with the features described herein.

Also, the formats for serialization may be flexible. For example, theserialization device 306 may implement at least part of theserialization via a format for serialization using human-readable textto transmit data objects including attribute-value pairs (such asJAVASCRIPT OBJECT NOTATION (JSON)). Other formats may include encodingsthat are universal amongst standardize computer programming languages.Also, options that are more compact may be used, such as binary XML.Standard XML may be used as well. JSON can be advantageous because it ishuman readable like standard XML and lightweight similar to binary XML.JSON may be based on JAVASCRIPT syntax and/or other programminglanguages.

JSON can be a more lightweight plain-text alternative to XML, which isalso commonly used for client-server communication in web applications.JSON can be based on JavaScript syntax and/or other programminglanguages. Also, “Yet Another Markup Language” (YAML) or a similarlanguage may be used for the serialization. YAML may include featuresthat improve the readability and compactness of the serialization overstandard JSON. Features of the serialization format may include a notionof tagging data types, support for non-hierarchical data structures, anoption to structure data with indentation, and forms of scalar dataquoting. Additionally or alternatively, a property list format may beused in the serialization. Also, binary serialization may be used.

For at least the serialization processes, object-oriented programminglanguages may be utilized, such as Ruby, Smalltalk, Python, PHP,Objective-C, Java, and .NET languages. Also, scripts or applets may beused for at least instructing the serialization processes. Also,libraries may be added for serialization support for languages that lacknative support for serialization.

In an example, the code compressor 308 can be configured to run codecompressing processes (e.g., code compressions 432, 532, or 632illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively) on a thread, such as a backgroundthread of the client-side application 303 (e.g., background thread(s)418, 518, and 618, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively). The codecompressor 308, within the compressing processes, via the thread, can beconfigured to compress the data serialized and/or stored by theserialization device 306.

The code compressor 308, within the compressing processes, may also beconfigured to encode the data received from the serialization device306. For example, the code compressor 308 may use encoding schemes thatrepresent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into aradix-64 representation, such as encoding the data to Base64.

The data compression performed by the code compressor 308, can includeraw data compression, compression of source coding, and/or bit ratereduction. Bit rate reduction may include encoding data with fewer bitsthan the original data. The compression can be either lossy or lossless.Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and reducing redundancyin the original data. No data is lost in ideal lossless compression. Inan example, lossy compression can reduce bits by identifying unnecessarydata, such as repetitive data, and removing the unnecessary data. Thecode compressor 308 can also use compressed sensing. Compressed sensingmay include sampling of the original data and then compressing thesampled data. The sampling can vary depending on its purpose andresources allocated to the sampling.

A compression configurator 328, on the client-side or the server-sidecan be configured to manually or automatically adjust space-timecomplexity trade-off of the code compressor 308. Such configurations mayoccur within the compressing processes. The amount of resourcesdedicated to the compression versus the speed of compression can also beadjusted by the compression configurator 328. The configurator 328 canconfigure levels for the degree of compression, the amount of distortionintroduced in lossy data compression, and the computational resourcesrequired to compress and decompress the data.

In an example, the code compressor 308, within the compressingprocesses, can compress data, such as client-side application data,content data, and user interaction data, so that the compressed data iscompatible with operations of a cached model layer and data layerassociated with the client-side application 303.

At least parts of the cached model layer and the data layer may behosted on a server in communication with a device hosting theclient-side application 303. The server hosting the cached parts of themodel layer and the data layer can act as a cache of the client-sideapplication 303. The server can also host multiple iterations of thecached layers associated with the client-side application 303, so thatthere are virtually separate caches for each session of the client-sideapplication 303 across different devices hosting different instances ofthe client-side application 303. Besides the uploading processesdescribed herein, the caching provided by such a server can bring greatefficiencies to the delivery of content over a network, such as theInternet.

In an example, the communication interface 310 can be configured to runcommunication processes (e.g., communicating 434, 534, or 634illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively) on a thread, such as a foregroundthread of the client-side application 303 (e.g., foreground thread(s)416, 516, and 616, illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 respectively). Thecommunication interface 310, within the communication processes, via thethread, can be configured to communicate to a server (such as theaccount server 102 and/or the analytics server 118), the data compressedby the code compressor 308. The communication interface 310 can beconfigured to communicate the compressed data and non-compressed datasimultaneously to the server. Such communications can be asynchronous orsynchronous, or a combination thereof.

In an example, the communication interface, within the communicationprocesses, via the thread, can be configured to communicate thecompressed data to a database 314 (or a web service that imitates arelational database), such as HTTP post the compressed data to one ormore database tables associated with the system 300, the client-sideapplication 303, the content 316, an account system (e.g., the accountserver 102 and the account database 104), and/or an analytics system(e.g., the analytics server 118 and the analytics database 119). Thedatabase 314 can be hosted on one or more servers. In an example, thedatabase 314 can be hosted by the content cache server 116, theanalytics server 118, and/or the account server 102. Also, the analyticsdatabase 119, the account database 104, and/or a database associatedwith the content cache server 116 and/or the content server 112 mayinclude aspects of the database 314. Also, aspects of the database 314can be stored and executed locally on the client device hosting theclient-side application 303. Also, the database 314 can include theaccount database 104 and/or the analytics database 119, and can becommunicatively coupled to the account server 102 and/or the analyticsserver 118.

In an example, a component associated with or part of the database 314can decode the encoding, decompress the compression, and log the decodedand decompressed data. The decoded and decompressed data can then beutilized by an analytics system, such as a system provided by theanalytics server 118 and analytics database 119.

In an example that uses an HTTP post, the post can use AJAX or anotherformat for communicating web application information across variousplatforms. In an example, the communication interface 310 cancommunicate cross-domain communications, such as cross-domain HTTPposts. In this example the code builder 304 can use credentialsstandard, such as Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) if theclient-side application 303 supports CORS. Alternatively, to supportcross-domain communications, the code builder 304 or another aspect ofthe system 300 can use hidden tags. For example, a web browser can usehidden <form> tags that target respective hidden <iframe> tags.

Regarding the threads of the system 300, a thread of the communicationinterface 310 may be a foreground thread of the client-side application303 or an operating system running the client-side application 303. Athread of the code scanner 302, the code builder 304 and/or the trackers312 and 320 may be a foreground thread of the client-side application303 or an operating system running the client-side application 303. Athread of the serialization device 306 and the code compressor 308 maybe a background thread of the client-side application 303 or anoperating system running the client-side application 303. Alternatively,the thread of the serialization device 306 may be a foreground thread ofthe client-side application 303 or an operating system running theclient-side application 303. Any combination or all of the threadsassociated with the system 300 may be one or more threads. For example,all the background processes may run on one thread, and all theforeground processes may run on another thread. Also, each process mayhave a dedicated thread.

In an example system 300, the system 300 may run one or more foregroundthreads for the operations of the code scanner 302, the code builder304, the trackers 312 and 320, and the communication interface 310, andrun one or more background threads for the serialization device 306 andthe code compressor 308. Alternatively, the system 300 may run one ormore foreground threads for the operations of the code scanner 302, thecode builder 304, the trackers 312 and 320, the serialization device306, and the communication interface 310, and run one or more backgroundthreads for the code compressor 308.

Also, for example, the system 300 may run one or more foreground threadsfor the operations of the communication interface 310, and run one ormore background threads for the code scanner 302, the code builder 304,the trackers 312 and 320, the serialization device 306 and the codecompressor 308. The aforementioned are just three example arrangementsof threads, and there may be other useful variations of arranging theoperations of the system 300 over background and foreground threads.

Each aspect of the system 300 may be implemented through at least aninterpreted computer programming language (such as JAVASCRIPT or PHP) oran object-oriented computer language (such as DART). These aspects ofthe system 300 may be implemented via respective applets and/or scriptsdedicated to each component of the system separately or combined. Eachof the components of system 300, such as the code compressor, may beimplemented by a web worker.

A web worker, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and theWeb Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), is aJavaScript script executed from an HTML page that runs in thebackground, independently of other user-interface scripts that may alsohave been executed from the same HTML page. Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_worker. A web worker can be any scriptor applet executed from a client-side application that runs in thebackground, independent of other scripts, applets, or built-incomponents of the client-side application that run in the foreground.Web workers may include long-running scripts that are not interrupted byuser-interface scripts (scripts that respond to clicks or other userinteractions). This allows the processor intensive tasks of thecomponents of the system 300 to relatively not interfere with userinterface operations of the client-side application 303, for example.Also, the web worker may limit interference with the task of thecommunication of the data packets. In one example, a web worker canmanage simultaneous execution of foreground browser threads andbackground threads, such as background JAVASCRIPT threads. Also, the webworker can be dedicated to background threads of the client-sideapplication.

In one example, the background processes of the client-side application303 and the processes described herein may follow a single thread ofexecution, except for the code compression, so that the variousprocesses of the system occur in a predetermined sequence and thecompression can have a dedicated thread. Because the sequence can bepredetermined and the amount of data to be processed can bepredetermined, timing of the scanning, building, tracking,serialization, and compression can be predicted, and this prediction canbe used to coordinate the timing of the communication of the packets bythe communication interface 310.

The web worker may be dedicated to one of the processes of the system300, such as the compression, or shared by any combination of theprocesses, such as the serialization and the compression. When the webworker runs on a background thread, it may not have direct access to thestructure and organization of the content 316, such as DOM of anelectronic property. In an example, messaging, such as messaging viaSOAP, may be utilized to communicate with the DOM when the web worker isrunning in the background. In an example, the scanning and/or thebuilding processes can be throttled in a batch process, so that moreinformation per message can be communicated to the web worker. Forexample, with the throttling, more information can be transferred permessage from a thread running the scanning and/or the building to athread running the serialization and/or compression. In an example, themessage is the aspect of the system 300 that is serialized andcompressed. The message can include data from regular scanning processes(e.g. code scanning 422 or 522) or the throttled scanning processes(e.g., throttled scanning 622).

The system 300 can include several other features, not depicted in FIG.3, that can be performed through one or more of the aforementionedcomponents of the system 300.

The system 300 can include an add modules device for adding sections ormodules of a page view to track. The system 300 can also include aremove modules device for removing sections or modules of a page view totrack. The add modules device can be configured to receive an array ofstrings, a single string, or a multi-dimensional map object,representing element identifications to section or modules to track. Theremove modules device can receive the same, but to identify sections andmodules not to track. Also, the add modules device can be configured toreceive an instruction to track or not track a page view entirely. Atleast parts of the add modules device and the remove modules device canbe executed by the code scanner 302, and the add modules device and theremove modules device, on the fly, can add and remove, respectively,sections or modules of the page view to track dynamically. This can beespecially useful when content sections and modules are added andremoved dynamically to a page view without any refreshing of the pageview.

The system 300 can include a refresh modules device for refreshingsections or modules of a page view. The refresh modules device can beconfigured to receive an array of strings, a single string, or amulti-dimensional map object, representing element identifications tosections or modules to refresh. Also, the refresh modules device can beconfigured to log any refreshing of a module or a section along with arespective page view identification. Also, the refresh modules devicecan be configured to not run when no new modules or sections have beenadded or removed since a prior scan. A separate device can be executedto determine whether a module or section is being tracked and theninform the refresher. Also, the refresh modules can be configured tocapture recently updated data in a page view and not previously viewedcontent.

At least parts of the refresh modules device can be executed by the codescanner 302 or the code builder 304, and the refresh modules device, onthe fly, can refresh sections or modules of the page view dynamically.This can be especially useful when content sections and modules areadded and removed dynamically to a page view without any refreshing ofthe page view. In this sense, the entire page view is not refreshed, butsections and modules can be individually refreshed. In an example, theentire page view can be refreshed. Also, refreshed to the page view,sections, and modules can occur in the system 300 without requesting arefresh from a device external to the device hosting the client-sideapplication 303.

The system 300 can include an add event signal device for beaconing aselected event, such as a certain click event on a page view. The addevent signal device can be configured to receive a string that canidentify the selected event. The device can be configured to alsoreceive an object including key value pairs to add parameters associatedwith a respective page view or the selected event. The device can alsoreceive an identification of an outcome of the selected event. Theoutcome of the selected event can be logged by the user interactiontracker 312, for example. Such a log can be used to map outcomes in apage view by the code builder 304. These mapped outcomes can be part ofthe hierarchical representation of at least part of the one or moresections and/or the one or more identified anchors. At least part of theadd event signal device can be executed by the user interaction trackerscanner 312, and the device, on the fly, can beacon a certain eventdynamically. This can be especially useful when click opportunities areadded dynamically to a page view without any refreshing of the pageview.

The system 300 can include an add click-event signal device forbeaconing a selected click-event. The add click-event signal device canbe configured to receive a string that can identify a page view sectionassociated with the click-event, a string describing a link associatedwith the click-event, and a value representing the link positionrelative to other links within the section, for example. The addclick-event signal device can also receive key/value pairs that can bepassed along with the click-event beaconing. This device can alsoreceive an identification of an outcome of the selected click-event. Theoutcome of the selected click-event can be logged by the userinteraction tracker 312, for example. Such a log can be used to mapoutcomes in a page view by the code builder 304. These mapped outcomescan be part of the hierarchical representation of at least part of theone or more sections and/or the one or more identified anchors. At leastpart of the add click-event signal device can be executed by the userinteraction tracker scanner 312, and the device, on the fly, can beacona certain click-event dynamically. This can be especially useful whenclick opportunities are added dynamically to a page view without anyrefreshing of the page view. Also, the device can be especially usefulwhen links exist on the page view that the other devices and features ofthe system 300 cannot track. For example, difficult to track linksusually occur within or are associated with code sections, such asJavaScript handlers, used for interrupts, such as interrupts thatprevent unwanted event propagation.

The system 300 can include an add page view signal device for beaconinga selected page view. The add page view signal device can be configuredto receive an object including key value pairs to add parametersassociated with a respective page view. This device can modify page viewparameters associate through a session identifier of the page view, forexample. One or more page view parameters can identify whether and how apage view is to be analyzed by analytics, for example. At least part ofthe add page view signal device can be executed by the code scanner 302and/or the code builder 304, and the device, on the fly, can beacon apage view dynamically. This can be especially useful when page views aredynamically added to tracked page views when neither the new page viewrequested nor the previously tracked page views are re-requested by theclient-side application 303.

FIGS. 4-6 illustrate example operations performed by example systemsthat can perform client-side compression of data for communication to aserver (such as the system 300 of FIG. 3).

In FIGS. 4-6, the code scanner 302 can perform the code scans 422, 522,and 622 in the respective threads 416, 516, and 616; and these scans canrelate to eventual respective code compressions 432, 532, and 632.

The code builder 304 can perform the code builds 424, 524, and 624 inthe respective threads 416, 516, and 616; and these builds can be basedon the respective scans 422, 522, and 622.

The user interaction tracker 312 can perform the user interactiontrackings 426, 526, and 626 in the respective threads 416, 516, and 616;and these trackings can be based on the respective builds 424, 524, and624 and/or the respective content trackings 428, 528, and 628.

The content tracker 320 can perform the content trackings 428, 528, and628 in the respective threads 416, 516, and 616; and these trackings canbe based on the respective builds 424, 524, and 624 and/or therespective user interaction trackings 426, 526, and 626.

The serialization device 306 can perform the data serializations 430,530, and 630 in the respective threads 418, 518, and 618; and theseserializations can be based on the respective builds 424, 524, and 624,the respective user interaction trackings 426, 526, and 626, and/or therespective content trackings 428, 528, and 628.

The code compressor 308 can perform the code compressions 432, 532, and632 in the respective sixth threads 418, 518, and 618; and thesecompressions can be based on the respective serializations 430, 530, and630.

The communication interface 310 can perform communication processes 434,534, and 634 in the respective threads 416, 516, and 616. Thesecommunication processes can include the sending of compressed data toappropriate recipients, such as account servers and analytics servers.

Not depicted are the encoding processes that can occur just prior to thecompressions 432, 532, and 632. The encoding processes are describedabove in the sections describing FIG. 3. The encoding processes can runon the foreground thread(s) 416, 516, or 616 or the background thread(s)418, 518, or 618, depending on the configuration of the system 300. Inan example configuration, the encoding processes run on the backgroundthread(s) 418, 518, or 618, synchronized with the compressions 432, 532,or 632, respectively.

Each operation illustrated in FIGS. 4-6 can run on one or morebackground threads and/or one or more foreground threads. Also, aforeground thread or a background thread can share multiple operationsillustrated in FIGS. 4-6.

The threads described herein can run synchronously and/orasynchronously. For example, the threads in FIGS. 4-6 are illustratedrunning synchronously, since each thread includes at least one operationthat depends on at least one operation of another thread. For example,at 420, 520, or 620, the system 300 can receive a page view during arespective first period 440 a, 540 a, or 640 a. Then during a respectivesecond period 440 b, 540 b, and 640 b, the code scanner 302 can scan atleast part of the received page view. Since the scanning of the pageview depends on receiving the page view, these two operations aresynchronous processes. Processes such as the user interaction trackings426, 526, and 626 and the content trackings 428, 528, and 628, can besynchronous and/or asynchronous depending on respective configurationsof the user interaction tracker 312 and the content tracker 320. In theFIGS. 4-6, these operations are synchronous. Synchronizing theseoperations can be advantageous when a server receiving the compresseddata is expecting to receive the compressed data within certain timeslots.

FIG. 7 depicts one or more threads 702 that can run operations of FIGS.4-6 with respect to a first, a second, and a third section of a pageview. The one or more threads 704 are synchronous with the thread(s) 702because the thread(s) 704 have at least one operation that depends on anoperation of the thread(s) 702. The one or more threads 706 areasynchronous with respect to the thread(s) 702 and 704. The amount ofsections of a page view that can have each have their own thread candepend on the amount of resources available. In such examples, becauseof limitations in resources, sections can have different priorities forreceiving operations via dedicated threads.

FIG. 7 also depicts one or more threads 708 that can run operationsindependent of the operations associated with the page view, such asclient-side application security operations, resource sharing operationswith other applications executing on the host operating system, andcaching unrelated to the page view. The one or more threads 708 can beasynchronous with respect to the one or more threads dedicated to thepage view (e.g., one or more threads 702-706).

Referring back to FIGS. 4-6, the periods 440 a-440 e, 540 a-540 e, and640 a-640 e represent non-overlapping periods. Operations that span onlyone period within each of the periods of FIGS. 4-6 may not overlap withsingle period spanning operations of other periods. Operations that spanmore than one period can overlap with other operations that exist withinthose periods.

Referring to FIG. 4, the system 300 can dedicate resources to receivingan initial data corresponding to a page view at 420, within the firstperiod 440 a. At 422, the code scanner 302 can scan one or more sectionsof the page view identified to be scanned, within the second period 440b. At 424, the code builder 304 can build a data model representative ofthe one or more scanned sections of the page view. As depicted, the codebuilding 424 and the code scanning 422 can occur within the same timeperiod. For example, after a first section has been scanned, a secondsection can be scanned while the data model for the first section isbeing built. An item of the page view may not be included within thebuilt data model until it has been scanned.

At 426, the user interaction tracker 312 can track user interactionswith aspects stored in the built data model. The user interactions canalso be tracked with respect to content aspects being tracked at 428.For example, if bolding of font is being tracked and font became bolddue to a user interaction, the prior user interaction associated withthe bolded font can be tracked without referring back to the built datamodel. Also, specified user interactions can be tracked whether or notthey are associated with aspects stored in the built data model,depending on the configuration of the user interaction tracker 312.

At 428, the content tracker 320 can track aspects of the contentassociated with aspects of the page view stored in the built data model.The content aspects, such as graphical formatting aspects, can also betracked with respect to user interactions being tracked at 426. Forexample, if a click on text of a hyperlink is being tracked and it isknown that such a user interaction causes the text of the link to becomered, then the text turning red can be tracked by an inference after aclick on text of a hyperlink has been made. Also, specified contentaspects can be tracked whether or not they are associated with aspectsstored in the built data model, depending on the configuration of thecontent tracker 320.

At 430, the serialization device 306 can serialize data derived from thecode building at 424, the user interaction tracking at 426, and/or thecontent tracking at 428. As shown in FIG. 4, the third time period 440 cincluding the serialization at 430 does not overlap with the secondperiod 440 b, which includes the scanning 422, the code building 424,and the trackings 426 and 428. In other words, in the example of FIG. 4,the serialization at 430 of the data associated with one or moresections of the page view, derived from the scanning 422, the codebuilding 424, and the trackings 426 and 428, may not occur until thescanning, the code building and the trackings are completed for thoseone or more sections.

At 432, the code compressor can compressed the data serialized at theserialization 430. Since the compression 432 occurs within the fourthperiod 440 d, the compression 432 may not occur until the respectiveserialization 430 is completed. At 434, the communication interface 310can communicate the data compressed at the compression 432. Since thecommunication of the compressed data 434 occurs with the fifth period440 e, the communication 434 may not occur until the respectivecompression 432 is completed.

During the occurrences of the scanning 422, the building 424, thetrackings 426 and 428, the serialization, the compression, and thecommunicating, the system 300 can receive updated information for thepage view and update the content within the page view accordingly at440. The updated content can then be scanned at 422, and so on, untilthe updated content and interactions associated with the content arelogged at 424-428, serialized at 430, compressed at 432, andcommunicated at 434.

Referring to FIG. 5, the system 300 can dedicate resources to receivinginitial data corresponding to a page view at 520, within the firstperiod 540 a. At 552, the system 300 can dedicate resources to updatingcontent of the page view within a cache associated with the page view,within the periods 540 b-540 d. For example, a cache thread can bededicated to the updating of the content within the cache of the pageview, within the periods 540 b-540 d. Also, within the periods 540 b-540d, at 540, content can be updated within the page view according to thecontent information updated in the cache at 552. These content updatingoperations can occur simultaneously as code scanning of previous contentof the page view at 552, respective code building 524 based on thescanning at 522, respective trackings at 526 and 528, respectiveserialization at 530, and respective compression at 532. Similarly,these content updates can span across the periods 540 b-540 d.

At 522, the code scanner 302 can scan one or more sections of the pageview identified to be scanned, within the second period 540 b. This canoccur during the updates at 552 and 540. The scanning of the updates canoccur afterwards.

At 524, the code builder 304 can build a data model representative ofthe one or more scanned sections of the page view. As depicted, the codebuilding 524 and the code scanning 522 can occur within the same timeperiod as the updates at 552 and 540. After a first section has beenscanned, a second section can be scanned while the data model for thefirst section is being built. The second section can include contentupdates to the cache at 552 or to the actual page view at 540. Ingeneral, an item of the page view may not be included within the builtdata model until it has been scanned, whether that item was originallyreceived or is an update during a client-side application session isirrelevant.

At 526, the user interaction tracker 312 can track user interactionswith aspects stored in the built data model. The user interactions canalso be tracked with respect to content aspects being tracked at 528,whether those content aspects being tracked were presented or merelycached. For example, if bolding of font is being tracked and font becamebold, on the display or at least in the cache, due to a userinteraction, the prior user interaction associated with the bolded fontcan be tracked without referring back to the built data model. Also,specified user interactions can be tracked whether or not they areassociated with aspects stored in the built data model, depending on theconfiguration of the user interaction tracker 312.

At 528, the content tracker 320 can track aspects of the contentassociated with aspects of the page view stored in the built data model,whether the content was displayed after 540 or merely cached at 552. Thecontent aspects, such as graphical formatting aspects, can also betracked with respect to user interactions being tracked at 526, whetherthose formatting aspects were displayed after 540 or merely cached at552. For example, if a click on text of a hyperlink is being tracked andit is known that such a user interaction causes the text of the link tobecome red, then the text turning red can be tracked by an inferenceafter a click on text of a hyperlink has been made. Also, specifiedcontent aspects can be tracked at the updating of the page view at 540and/or at the updating of the cache at 552, whether or not they areassociated with aspects stored in the built data model, depending on theconfiguration of the content tracker 320.

At 530, the serialization device 306 can serialize data derived from thecode building at 524, the user interaction tracking at 526, and/or thecontent tracking at 528. As shown in FIG. 5, the third time period 540 cincluding the serialization at 530 does not overlap with the secondperiod 540 b, which includes the scanning 522, the code building 524,and the trackings 526 and 528. In other words, in the example of FIG. 5,the serialization at 530 of the data associated with one or moresections of the page view, derived from the scanning 522, the codebuilding 524, and the trackings 526 and 528, may not occur until thescanning, the code building and the trackings are completed for thoseone or more sections.

At 532, the code compressor can compressed the data serialized at theserialization 530. Since the compression 532 occurs within the fourthperiod 540 d, the compression 532 may not occur until the respectiveserialization 530 is completed. At 534, the communication interface 310can communicate the data compressed at the compression 532. Since thecommunication of the compressed data 534 occurs with the fifth period540 e, the communication 534 may not occur until the respectivecompression 532 is completed.

As mentioned, during the occurrences of the scanning 522, the building524, the trackings 526 and 528, the serialization 530, the compression532, and the communicating 534, the system 300 can receive updatedinformation for the page view and update the content within the pageview at the actual page view accordingly at 540 or update the contentwithin a cache associated with the page view at 552. The updated contentcan then be scanned at 522, and so on, until the updated content andinteractions associated with the content are logged at 524-528,serialized at 530, compressed at 532, and communicated at 534.

Referring to FIG. 6, the system 300 can dedicate resources to receivingan initial data corresponding to a page view at 620, within the firstperiod 640 a. At 662, the system 300 can dedicate resources to updatingcontent of the page view within a cache associated with the page view,within a period 660 dedicated to the updating of the content of the pageview within the cache. This cache may include a queue and/or a stack,and may reside on a server, such as the content cache server 116. Theperiod 660 can also be dedicated to communication of the cached items tothrottled scanning 622 and/or updating of the content within the pageview at 640. The time period dedicated to updating the cache within pageview items at 662, can also be referred to as the cache period 660.

Having the dedicated period for gathering future displayed content canbe especially useful for the throttled scanning 622. The throttledscanning 622 can include batch scanning of data associated with the pageview, whether that content has been presented to a user or is hidden inthe cache. For example, the throttled scanning can include batchscanning of the DOM of the page view, so that for example a large partof the data representing the page view is scanned within a period oftime. This can provide for more efficient building at 624 since most ofthe data representing the page view is provided, for example. Thisthrottling allows for more efficient tracking at 626 and 628 for similarreasons. The serialization 630 and the compression at 632 can beespecially more efficient for similar reasons. In the examples depicted,since serialization 630 and compression 632 have one or more dedicatedthreads 618 that can run simultaneously with the foreground thread(s)616, the size of the data to serialize and compress does not affect thepresentation and rendering of the page view. Therefore, theserialization 630 and the compression 632 can provide large amounts ofcompressed data to send at a time to a server, such as an analyticsserver. This can be especially useful for complex page views.

Also, due to the cache period 660 and the dedicated cache update 662,the caching of the update to the display view can happen at a very fastrate. This acceleration can optimize a stream of content, especially astream of an apparent endless sequence of items, such as the endlesssequence of items referred to in the description of FIG. 2 and FIG. 9.Each item can render to the screen more quickly once that item has beencached. Furthermore, as more items are cached quicker, the cached itemscan be more likely to keep up with a rate of a user scrolling throughnew items. The more resources dedicated to this process the moreseamless the stream appears.

With the acceleration of content, a stream of items may seem endless andseamless. Having an item cached prior to displaying it will quicken thedisplay of that item, compared to first requesting the item from acontent source and then displaying it. In other words, the cache can actas a queue. Also, by dedicating the cache period 660 to the cache update662 other, threads and operations of the system 300 may not interfere orcompete for resources in the updating of the cache. Furthermore, thisprocess can have its own dedicated thread (which is not depicted in FIG.6). Hence, the cache is rapidly updated, and an associate stream ofcontent appears to be more endless and seamless than a system notrapidly updating its cache of page view items in a similar manner.

Also, because caching of new items is accelerated at 662, the codescanning to serialization, compression, and sending off the compresseddata associated with the new items can happen more often within a givenperiod of time. As a result, a receiving account server or analyticsserver can benefit from information on cached new items earlier. Theseservers can then provide feedback to content sources or the cache (whichcan be hosted on a server for example) for providing new content itemsfor the page view. Therefore, the new items, such as new items in astream, can be better targeted.

With respect to the example illustrated in FIG. 6, within the periods640 b-640 e, content can be updated within the page view according tothe content information updated in the cache by a normal caching processat 652 or by an accelerated caching process at 662, at 640. The contentupdating operations at 652 and at 640 can occur during the occurrencesof the throttled code scanning of previous content of the page view at622, the respective code building at 624 based on the throttled scanningat 622, the respective trackings at 626 and 628, the respectiveserialization at 630, and the respective compression at 632.

At 622, in an example situation, the code scanner 302 can scan thesections of the page view identified to be scanned, within the secondperiod 640 b. This can occur even if the page view is complex and hasstreams of content. The throttled scanning 622 can occur during theupdates at 652 and 640 and for content updates received immediatelyprior, such as content updates derived from the accelerated cache updateat 662, the normal cache update at 652, and/or the displayed itemsupdate at 640, received immediately prior the latest received contentupdates. The system 300 can be configured to run the throttled scanning622 and not configured to run the accelerated caching 662. With normalcaching 652 and/or the accelerated caching, the throttled scanning 662can wait until a threshold amount of data has been cached. Also, in anexample configuration, the throttled scanning 622 can wait to initiateuntil the data associated with the page view is either displayed and/orcached. Also, the scanning at 622 can occur via operations described inFIG. 8, for example.

At 624, the code builder 304 can build a data model representative ofthe one or more scanned sections of the page view, including sectionsassociated with the updates from the operations at 662, 652, and/or 640,for example. As depicted, the code building 624 and the code scanning622 can occur within the same time period as the updates at 652 and 640.Also, even with throttled scanning, after a first section has beenscanned, a second section can be scanned while the data model for thefirst section is being built. However, the building in one section isstill synchronized with the throttled scanning of that section. Giventhis, the second section can include accelerated content updates to thecache at 662, regular updates to the cache at 652, or updates to theactual page view at 640, during scanning of and building of codeassociated with the first section.

At 626, the user interaction tracker 312 can track user interactionswith aspects stored in the built data model. The user interactions canalso be tracked with respect to content aspects being tracked at 628,whether those content aspects being tracked were presented or merelycached through the throttled cache update 662 or the normal cache update652. For example, if bolding of font is being tracked and font becamebold, on the display or at least in the cache, due to a userinteraction, the prior user interaction associated with the bolded fontcan be tracked without referring back to the built data model. Also,specified user interactions can be tracked whether or not they areassociated with aspects stored in the built data model, depending on theconfiguration of the user interaction tracker 312.

At 628, the content tracker 320 can track aspects of the contentassociated with aspects of the page view stored in the built data model,whether the content was displayed after 640 or merely cached through thethrottled cache update 662 or the normal cache update 652. The contentaspects, such as graphical formatting aspects, can also be tracked withrespect to user interactions being tracked at 626, whether thoseformatting aspects were displayed after 640 or merely cached at 652 orat 662. For example, if a click on text of a hyperlink is being trackedand it is known that such a user interaction causes the text of the linkto become red, then the text turning red can be tracked by an inferenceafter a click on text of a hyperlink has been made. Also, specifiedcontent aspects can be tracked at the updating of the page view at 640,at the updating of the cache at 652, or updating at the throttled cacheupdate 662, whether or not they are associated with aspects stored inthe built data model, depending on the configuration of the contenttracker 320.

At 630, the serialization device 306 can serialize data derived from thecode building at 624, the user interaction tracking at 626, and/or thecontent tracking at 628. As shown in FIG. 6, the third time period 640 cincluding the serialization at 630 does not overlap with the secondperiod 640 b, which includes the scanning 622, the code building 624,and the trackings 626 and 628, nor does it overlap with the cache period660. In other words, in the example of FIG. 6, the serialization at 630of the data associated with one or more sections of the page view,derived from the scanning 622, the code building 624, and the trackings626 and 628, may not occur until the respective caching, the respectivescanning, the respective code building, and the respective trackings arecompleted for those one or more sections.

At 632, the code compressor can compressed the data serialized at theserialization 630. Since the compression 632 occurs within the fourthperiod 640 d, the compression 632 may not occur until the respectiveserialization 630 is completed. At 634, the communication interface 310can communicate the data compressed at the compression 632. Since thecommunication of the compressed data 634 occurs with the fifth period640 e, the communication 634 may not occur until the respectivecompression 632 is completed.

As mentioned, during the occurrences of the scanning 622, the building624, the trackings 626 and 528, the serialization 630, the compression632, and the communicating 634, the system 300 can receive updatedinformation for the page view and update the content within the pageview at the actual page view accordingly at 640 or update the contentwithin a cache associated with the page view at 652 or at 662. Theupdated content can then be scanned at 622, and so on, until the updatedcontent and interactions associated with the content are logged at624-628, serialized at 630, compressed at 632, and communicated at 634.

FIG. 8 illustrates example operations performed by example systems thatcan throttle the client-side compression of data for communication to aserver (such as the system 300 of FIG. 3), via batch processing of thescanning of the data prior to the compression.

For example, the system 300 can receive data associated with an initialrendering of a page view in a session of a client-side application, at802. That first page view can include at least one streaming section ofcontent. The system can then receive additional data associated withadditional content to stream in the at least one stream section ofcontent, at 804. The initial content and the additional content can bereceived within the session of the client-side application. The initialand the additional content include the content to be rendered and/orlinks to the content to be rendered. The additional data can berepresentative of the additional content for display in one or moreadditional views of the at least one streaming section of content. Theinitial data can be representative of the initial content for display inthe initial view of the at least one streaming section of content. Also,the received data before processing can be stored, at 806, in a remotecache, such as the cache of the content cache server 116, or a localcache, such as a cache associated with the client-side applicationhosted by a client device hosting the client-side application.

The additional content can continue to be received until a cachethreshold amount of data for the at least one streaming section isreached. At 808, the system 300 can determine whether the cachethreshold has been reached. The threshold amount of data stored in thecache can be predetermined and be configured by a server eventuallyreceiving the data in a compressed form. If the threshold is determinednot to be reached, then the system can continue to receive theadditional data at 806.

At 810, due to the received additional data meeting the cache threshold,the code scanner 302 can scan at least the cached initial data and thecached additional data, for the at least one streaming section ofcontent, via a batch process. Once the batch process is performed at810, the data can be cleared from the cache at 820 and the system canthen continue to receive more data at 806. The initial data and theadditional data can be data associated with content and/or hyperlinks tocontent.

Alternatively, any data received for the page view can be queued to bescanned by the code scanner, and the code scanner can continue with abatch process of scanning that data until a threshold amount of data isreached for scanning. In the alternative example, the limiting of theamount of scanning per batch is during the scanning processes opposed toprior to the scanning processes, such as at the tracking of theassociated cache.

At 812, the code builder 304 can build code according to the scanningvia the batch process at 810. At 814, the built code can be serialized.At 816, the serialized code can be compressed, and then at 818, thecompressed code can be communicated to a server, such as the analyticsserver 118.

FIG. 9 illustrates example operations performed by example systems thatcan render a page view that appears to stream an infinite amount ofseamless content and can perform client-side compression of dataassociated with the seamless content for communication to a server (suchas the system 300 of FIG. 3). Also, in an example, the client-sidecompression of the seemingly infinite stream of content can be optimizedby the operations illustrated in FIG. 8.

The seemingly infinite stream of content can begin at 902, withdisplaying a page view on a display device of the client device 301. Thepage view in its initial presentation can include at least one sectionof the streaming content that appears to be infinite. At 904, a userinterface associated with and/or included in the page view can receiveat least one user interaction. The initial display of the page view andthe user interaction(s) occurs within a session of the page view. At906, the page view can update at the section(s) with at least one newcontent item in response to the user interaction(s). This update alsooccurs within the session of the page view. The new content item can bederived from a link in a queue associated with a section for example.The queue can be hosted by a server, such as the content cache server116. The page view can repeat updating of a section with a new contentitem every time a new user interaction associated with that section isreceived within the session of the page view. This can occur until nonew content items exist in the queue for that section. The queue mayalso be universal to the page view or a respective web property, such asan entire website. During these updates, the system 300 can track thenew content items as they appear in the sections, the queues, or cachesassociated with the queues or the sections. In an example, a queueand/or a stack may be used to store the upcoming content.

The tracking of the new content items can include the operationsperformed by the components of system 300. For example, the tracking caninclude scanning a document object model of the page view and/or one ormore updated sections of the page view to identify the new contentitems, at 908. The tracking can also include building coderepresentative of the page view and/or one or more updated sections ofthe page view, at 910. The tracking can also include serializing thebuilt code, at 912; compressing the serialized code, at 914; andcommunicating the compressed code to a server, such as the analyticsserver 118, at 916. Not depicted, but found in some examples, is theencoding done on the code prior to the compression at 914.

In an example, at 918, the system 300 or the client-side application 303for example, can determine whether content items exists in the queue. At920, as a result of no content items existing in the queue, the contentcache server 116, for example, can recycle content used by inserting itback into the queue. Also, at 920, the content cache server 116 forexample can retrieve new content from a content source to fill thequeue. Content can be added to the queue if content is used up withinthe session of the page view. Additionally, in the recycling of content,the content cache server 116, for example, can change at least onecontent item of the content used within the session of the page view.Also, in an example, the queue can be updated with new content opposedto recycled content, as mentioned. Either way, the queue can becontinually updated with new and/or recycled content from a plurality ofcontent sources to avoid an occurrence of the session of the page viewusing up new or recycled content items in the queue. In one example, theamount of new content can make it practically impossible for recycledcontent items to exist in the queue, within the session. In such anexample, the recycling may become obsolete.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an example of an electronic device 1000that can implement one or more aspects of the system 300 or aspectsassociated with the system 300, such as the content cache server 116.Instances of the electronic device 1000 may include a server, such asthe server 102, 106, 108, 112, 116, or 118, or may include a clientdevice, such as the client device 301. The electronic device 1000 caninclude a processor 1002, memory 1010, a power supply 1006, andinput/output components, such as network interface(s) 1030 andinput/output interface(s) 1040, and a communication bus 1004 thatconnects the aforementioned elements of the electronic device. Thenetwork interfaces 1030 can include a receiver and a transmitter (or atransceiver), and an antenna for wireless communications. The processor1002 can be one or more of any type of processing device, such as acentral processing unit (CPU). Also, for example, the processor 1002 canbe central processing logic; central processing logic may includehardware, firmware, software and/or combinations of each to performfunction(s) or action(s), and/or to cause a function or action fromanother component. Also, central processing logic may include a softwarecontrolled microprocessor, discrete logic such as an applicationspecific integrated circuit (ASIC), a programmable/programmed logicdevice, memory device containing instructions, or the like, orcombinational logic embodied in hardware. Also, logic may also be fullyembodied as software. The memory 1010, which can include random accessmemory (RAM) 1012 or read-only memory (ROM) 1014, can be enabled by oneor more of any type of memory device, such as a primary (directlyaccessible by the CPU) and/or a secondary (indirectly accessible by theCPU) storage device (e.g., flash memory, magnetic disk, optical disk).

The RAM 1012 can store data and instructions defining an operatingsystem 1021, data storage 1024, and applications 1022, including theclient-side application 303, aspects of the system 300, and/orinstructions to enable aspects of the content cache server 116. Examplecontent provided by an application, such as the content 316, may includetext, images, audio, video, or the like, which may be processed in theform of physical signals, such as electrical signals, for example, ormay be stored in memory, as physical states, for example.

The ROM can include basic input/output system (BIOS) 1020 of theelectronic device 1000. The power supply 1006 contains one or more powercomponents, and facilitates supply and management of power to theelectronic device 1000. The input/output components can include anyinterfaces for facilitating communication between any components of theelectronic device 1000, components of external devices (such ascomponents of other devices of the information system 100), and endusers. For example, such components can include a network card that isan integration of a receiver, a transmitter, and one or more I/Ointerfaces, such as input/output interface(s) 1040. A network card, forexample, can facilitate wired or wireless communication with otherdevices of a network. In cases of wireless communication, an antenna canfacilitate such communication. The I/O components, such as I/Ointerface(s) 1040, can include user interfaces such as monitors,keyboards, touchscreens, microphones, and speakers. Further, some of theI/O components, such as I/O interface(s) 1040, and the bus 1004 canfacilitate communication between components of the electronic device1000, and can ease processing performed by the processor 1002.

Where the electronic device 1000 is a server, it can include a computingdevice that is capable of sending or receiving signals, such as via awired or wireless network, or may be capable of processing or storingsignals, such as in memory as physical memory states, and may,therefore, operate as a server. Thus, devices capable of operating as aserver may include, as examples, dedicated rack-mounted servers, desktopcomputers, laptop computers, set top boxes, integrated devices combiningvarious features, such as two or more features of the foregoing devices,or the like.

Further, a server may vary widely in configuration or capabilities, butgenerally, a server may include one or more central processing units andmemory. A server may also include one or more mass storage devices, oneor more power supplies, one or more wired or wireless networkinterfaces, one or more input/output interfaces, or one or moreoperating systems, such as Windows Server, Mac OS X, Unix, Linux,FreeBSD, or the like. Particularly, the server may be an applicationserver that may include a configuration to provide an application, suchas the system 300, via a network to other devices. Also, an applicationserver may, for example, host a website that can provide a userinterface for the configuring of the system 300.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a code scannerconfigured to scan document object models of a set of viewable contentitems included in page views displayed on a display device; a userinterface device configured to: run on a thread of a client-sideapplication; and output data representative of a section of a first pageview displayed on the display device, the first page view includingfirst viewable content items of the set of viewable content items, theset of viewable content items also including second viewable contentitems that are not displayed with the first viewable content items inthe first page view, wherein the second viewable content items are to bedisplayed in an updated page view in response to a scrolling event toscroll through the set of viewable content items, the scrolling eventoccurring during display of the first page view, and wherein the secondviewable content items are not scanned by the code scanner before beingdisplayed in the updated page view in response to the scrolling event;and a queue or stack communicatively coupled to the user interfacedevice, the queue or stack configured to store links to the secondviewable content items during the first page view before the secondviewable content items are displayed, wherein the user interface deviceis further configured to: receive the scrolling event to scroll throughthe set of viewable content items during display of the first page view;and in response to the scrolling event, cause the second viewablecontent items to be displayed in the updated page view on the displaydevice through the links to the second viewable content items stored inthe queue or stack, resulting in the second viewable content items addedto the set of viewable content items; and wherein the code scanner isconfigured to scan a document object model of the second viewablecontent items in response to the scrolling event.
 2. The system of claim1, wherein the code scanner is further configured to: identify at leastthe first and the second viewable content items; and wherein the systemfurther comprises: a code builder communicatively coupled to the codescanner, the code builder configured to: build a hierarchicalrepresentation of the section and at least the first and the secondviewable content items.
 3. The system of claim 2, further comprising: adata serialization device communicatively coupled to the code builder,the data serialization device configured to: serialize and store thehierarchical representation, resulting in serialized data.
 4. The systemof claim 3, further comprising: a code compressor communicativelycoupled to the data serialization device, the code compressor configuredto: compress the serialized data, resulting in compressed data.
 5. Thesystem of claim 4, further comprising: a communication interfacecommunicatively coupled to the code compressor, the communicationinterface configured to: communicate the compressed data to an analyticsserver.
 6. The system of claim 4, wherein a thread supporting the codecompressor is a background thread of a client-side application.
 7. Thesystem of claim 5, wherein a thread supporting the communication of thecompressed data to the analytics server is a foreground thread of aclient-side application.
 8. The system of claim 4, wherein the codecompressor is implemented through a web worker.
 9. A system comprising:a display device configured to display first content items of a streamin a first page view and second content items of the stream in a secondpage view; a queue or a stack configured to store links to the secondcontent items during the first page view, before the second contentitems are displayed in the second page view, and before the secondcontent items are scanned by a scanner configured to scan the secondcontent items; and a content control device communicatively coupled tothe queue or the stack, the content control device configured to:receive user interaction data indicative of a user input to view more ofthe stream being displayed by the display device; retrieve, from thequeue or stack, one or more of the links in response to the userinteraction data; and retrieve the second content items in response toretrieval of the one or more links; wherein the display device isfurther configured to: receive the second content items in response tothe retrieval of the second content items by the content control device;and display the second content items in the second page view.
 10. Thesystem of claim 9, wherein the scanner is configured to generate scannedoutput data based on a scan of the second content items, the systemfurther comprising: a code builder configured to build code according tothe scanned output data.
 11. The system of claim 10, further comprising:a serialization device configured to serialize the built code; a codecompressor configured to compress the serialized code; and acommunication interface configured to communicate the compressed code toa server for further processing.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein thecode compressor is configured to run on its own thread.
 13. A method,comprising: displaying a page view on a display device, the page viewincluding a first section of streaming content; during the display ofthe page view on the display device, storing, in a queue or stack hostedby a server, a link to a second section of a plurality of new sectionsof the streaming content, wherein the second section is not displayedwith the first section during the page view, wherein the second sectionis to be displayed in an updated page view in response to a userinteraction to view more of the streaming content, the user interactionoccurring during display of the page view, and wherein the secondsection is not tracked before being displayed in the updated page viewin response to the user interaction; receiving, with a user interfacedevice, the user interaction to view more of the streaming content; inresponse to receiving the user interaction, retrieving, with a contentcontrol device, the link in the queue or stack; in response toretrieving the link, retrieving, with the content control device, thesecond section of the streaming content; in response to retrieving thesecond section, displaying, on the display device, the updated page viewincluding the second section of the streaming content; repeatedlyforming one of a plurality of newly updated page views with a newsection of the plurality of new sections of the streaming content byretrieving an associated link in the queue or stack every time anotheruser interaction to view more of the streaming content is received,until no associated links to new sections exist in the queue or thestack; and tracking the new sections as they are displayed in theplurality of newly updated page views.
 14. The method of claim 13,wherein the tracking of the new sections comprises: scanning documentobject models of the new sections; identifying new content itemsincluded in the new sections; building code representative of the newcontent items; serializing the built code; compressing the serializedcode; and communicating the compressed code to an analytics server. 15.The method of claim 13, comprising: recycling content displayed in aprior page view in response to no links to new sections existing in thequeue or the stack.
 16. The method of claim 13, comprising: changing atleast one content item included in a prior page view in response to nolinks to new sections existing in the queue or the stack; and forminganother one of the plurality of newly updated page views with the atleast one content item changed in response to another user interactionto view more of the streaming content.
 17. The method of claim 13,wherein the first section includes a list of content items, the list ofcontent items scrollable by the user interaction.
 18. The method ofclaim 17, wherein the user interaction includes at least a click on ascrollbar or a touch gesture over the first section.
 19. The method ofclaim 13, wherein the queue or the stack is continually updated withlinks to new content from a plurality of content sources to avoid anoccurrence of the streaming content ending before a user viewing thestreaming content on the display device ends a session of viewing thestreaming content.